In the autumn of 2003, Mark Zuckerberg had an idea, although it wasn't one that was wholly his own. The swot who scored a perfect 1600 in his SAT tests didn't invent The Social Network, that was something that existed in various forms both on the internet with sites like Myspace and also Friendster, although that's not one which was particularly well-known in the UK. However, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, except when you come to take things one step too far and start screwing over the people who helped you out on the rise to the top. A few key conversations are portrayed such as college mate Dustin (Joseph Mazzello, who I only remember before as being one of the two screaming kids in the first Jurassic Park movie), who really wants to know if a girl he likes has a boyfriend or not and Mark replies that people don't just walk round with a sign on them telling you their relationship status... For an earlier site, Facemash.com, he wants people to be able to compare girls to determine who's the more attractive, rather than HotOrNot.com's 1-10 rating scale for an individual girl, and needs Edurado's (Andrew Garfield, right with Jesse Eisenberg) algorithm which he uses to rank chess players. How to get all the images of girls that he needs, though? No problem - he'll copy their pictures from their individual University houses on Harvard campus where the brainbox studies. Rather stupidly, however, he blogs about every last detail of this, as well as posting random thoughts about Erica (Rooney Mara), from whom he has just split up, on his Zuckonit blog. The Facemash.com process is fleshed out while the beautiful people at the Phoenix club are out getting pissed and watching girls lez up, so that gives an idea of Mark's priorities. For a while, well a few hours, life is good, but then the Harvard servers begin to overload and he gets into big trouble as a result.

The cast works well together to deliver the goods, with Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role and Andrew Garfield bouncing well off each other; Armie Hammer - I'm sure that's not his real name - who cleverly plays two roles, that of twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, are athletic members of the Harvard rowing team who come up with a similar idea, Harvard Connection, and who get similarly pissed off with Mark at his actions. As, ahem, one of them puts it when wanting to give Mark a beating, "I'm 6'5, 220lbs and there's two of me." There's also adequate support from Justin Timberlake (right) as Sean Parker, the founder of Napster - who also lends a hand as well as the character's ego, but a lot of other actors are just used for bit parts and so don't get the chance to leave a lasting impression, such as the aforementioned Joseph Mazzello, plus Brenda Song (below-right with Eisenberg and Garfield) and Rooney Mara as respective girlfriend fodder for Eduardo and Mark respectively, and Bryan Barter as another friend, Billy Olsen, who originally gives Mark the idea of comparing girls' faces by initially setting up a site to do the same but to compare them individually with those of farm animals(!) Mark Zuckerberg's portrayed as a bit of an egotistical twat by Jesse Eisenberg, an actor I've only seen in one movie before, Zombieland, one which started off great but then fell apart after the first 30 minutes. Thankfully, The Social Network retains your interest throughout, partly thanks to a fast-moving script from Aaron Sorkin so you never get bored, although overall it does tend to feel less than the sum of its parts. That's because, although it does balance nicely between scenes at the time of Facebook's inception and various flashes forward to the more recent past where he's being sued in two different lawsuits by different friends, it does have a bit of a linear feel to it and that's not something you normally expect from a visionary director like David Fincher, who created a work of art with Seven and brought some underrated style to movies such as Panic Room, The Game and Alien3. Here, Fincher just brings some nicely-framed scenes throughout, and while I'd certainly recommend a rental to anyone, I can't see why it's become the top movie of last year for a lot of people, including Mark Kermode. Still, each to their own.

Presented in the original 2.35:1 theatrical ratio and in 1080p high definition, the picture is sharp and detailed, with no issues whatsoever. For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player. The sound is in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, for which I got the 5.1 DTS version and is mostly driven by dialogue and ambience but also occasionally the thumping beat of a nightclub or pub and when it thumps, it THUMPS! Sometimes the dialogue isn't as clear as it should be. This isn't the fault of the disc, but, for example, when Zuckerberg's talking to the Vinklevoss twins about their Facebook-type site idea based at Harvard.edu, it's in an echoey room where everyone's talking fast, so it's a problem with the film itself. The extras, all of which are on disc 2 except for the commentaries and all of which are also in high definition, and contain subtitles in a variety of languages, are as follows: How did they ever make a movie out of Facebook? (1:32:43): A feature-length making-of in four parts, the first taking in some of the basics during the preparation of the movie before, in the others, they move on to shoot it in Boston and Los Angeles for the location scenes and, finally, the studio lot for all the indoor scenes. These are broken up with chat from key cast and crew members all talking directly to the camera against a white background, which just looks very clinical and odd, as well as a bit pretentious. Frustratingly, there's only one chapter for each of the four segments, Featurettes: There are three of these, which all go into a bit of detail about different aspects of the filmmaking process and which are self-explanatory - Jeff Cronenweth & David Fincher on the visuals (7:48), featuring the director of photography and the film's director; Angus Wall, Kick Baxter & Ren Klyce on post (17:24) where two film editors and a sound designer talk about the post-production, not the problems affecting the Royal Mail these days; and Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross & David Fincher on the score (18:55). In the Hall of the Mountain King: Music Exploration (2:30... times four): Four drafts of the music used while the Winklevosses indulge in rowing. Swarmatron (4:28): Composer Trent Reznor talks about part of his bizarre musical box of tricks to get the sounds he desired. Ruby Skye VIP room: Multi-angle scene breakdown (3:42... times five): Five versions dealing with the nightclub scene where Zuckerberg and Parker discuss the business without Eduardo's presence. Audio commentaries: One with director David Fincher and one with writer Aaron Sorkin and the cast. The BBFC website confirms that while the film is presented uncut, the extras had 8 seconds of cuts to remove f-words, and you can tell that they're effectively all bleeped out. Generally, you can only use one or two f-words in a 12-certificate film and that's already used its quote in the movie itself, while the extras are littered with them. Had the film been a 15-cert, it would've been a different matter, as the BBFC site explains: "Company chose to remove a number of uses of strong language in order to acheive a '12' classification. Cuts made in accordance with BBFC Guidelines and policy. An uncut '15' classificaiton was available." Interestingly a trailer running 2:14 was rated 15 by the BBFC, but that is obviously not included here. The menu features some rather odd ambient scenes of Zuckerberg's college and people milling about. It's difficult to describe, but it almost feels like the film has already started, even though it hasn't. There are subtitles in English, French, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian and Swedish. However, the number of chapters is very thin on the ground with 16 over the 121-minute running time. I go by the rule of thumb of one every five minutes, taking into account one each for the opening and closing credits.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2011.